Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/240

 began again to act, warning him that E!men's purpose in putting this woman first upon the stand was not only to start the defense with a tremendous emotional appeal, but to dangle bait before him for cross-examination. Most particularly had the manner of Ketlar's birth been exposed as bait at which Elmen would have the State's attorney strike in an attempt to discredit and besmirch the witness.

Besmirching must be done this day, Calvin knew; but the mother was not the one to take the first attack. How well Elmen would like it! Calvin glanced at Anna Folwell's face and realized that she sat there, hoping fort an assault upon her, in which she would offer herself as victim for the sake of her son.

At Calvin's side Ellison was stirring impatiently; for Elmen had sat down, and the judge and the jury were waiting upon the attorneys for the State.

Calvin quietly arose. "We have no questions," he said, and almost instantly he won confirmation of his belief that Elmen had built upon his taking the bait.

The hour of the morning was enough to prove it; for the clock hands stood at half past eleven, too early for adjournment and not early enough to allow unbroken presentation of the first and most important part of the testimony of the next witness.

Elmen recognized this; undoubtedly, indeed, he had taken it into consideration when he had called Ketlar's mother for his first witness; but he had been sure that the State would strike at the offered bait because it was a lure at which others so frequently had struck. Ellison, left to himself, would have attempted to turn some of this witness's testimony to the purpose of the prosecution. When Clarke refused there ran through Elmen's competent brain, within his big, bald head, the reproach that